Ford sighed in contentment. Tycho quoting poetry to him could never fail to please him, whether it was his own work or someone else's. It made his chest feel full to think that he reminded anyone of poetry, even if it was of a melancholy sort like this.

"Like Tennyson, too," he agreed. "Better to have loved and lost — though that was just about a friend." A friend who had died; Ford remembered having read it in the wake of his first separation from Macnair and feeling the lines resonate with his own current heartbreak, and he remembered comparing it with what he knew of Cash's background and feeling guilty that he was putting such soulful lines on such a trite situation as his own. This didn't feel trite, though — he and Tycho had been very seriously involved, and though neither one of them was dying in two weeks the separation was still, in some senses, forever. It was unlikely Ford would ever stop being married, unless he happened to outlive her; it was even more unlikely that Tycho would still be waiting around for him in that case.

"Do you think we could still be friends?" he asked, with a frown. "Not right away, but someday?"

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